


through a lens, surprisingly clear

by Tozette



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Magic Revealed, muggles find out, wizards are shit at technology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 00:23:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4982638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tozette/pseuds/Tozette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you get down to it, it's amazing that the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy even lasted into the 90s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	through a lens, surprisingly clear

**Author's Note:**

> Experimental thing written to (hopefully) help me work out some context for a story I've been working on.

It started with a photograph. Whether muggles got better at making technology work for them or the Obliviators were lazy or--

There was a lot of room for error, and Harry wasn't sure where to lay the blame. A bird watcher with a high powered lens caught a picture of somebody's patronus, which, unfortunately enough, was a huge glowing albatross. 

The photograph hit the Internet, and then it was all Yahoo groups. 

The wizarding community tried - tried hard, admittedly - to pass it off as a hoax, as doctored photography. Unfortunately, the ham-handed efforts of grown wizards whose culture separated from muggles' in the seventeenth century were... noticeably suspect. 

Hermione brought print-outs, screen caps of GeoCities sites and transcripts from mailing lists. 

"They think it's some kind of government conspiracy?" Harry wondered. These were, he was sure, the kinds of people the Dursleys would call 'crazies'. 

"Well," said Ron, "it is, isn't it?"

Harry paused. "What?"

"There's the whole muggle liaison office, isn't there? They work with Dad. Have to explain every time there's a new muggle Minister for--" he stopped. "Do muggles have a Minister for Magic?"

"Prime Minister?" Hermione suggested. 

Ron shrugged. "Dad reckons it's a bit batty, explaining all over again every few years but you've got to have some cooperation, don't you?"

"I expect so," said Hermione slowly, with a distant expression like she was trying to integrate all this information and it's many implications. 

"Do you think they'll be able to, er, pass it off?" Harry wondered uncertainly. 

"They always have," Ron pointed out. "Remember second year, when we got caught flying the car to school?"

Harry nodded. 

Hermione, on the other hand, looked worried. "I'm not sure, Ron. That was a few reports to police and news stations, and it was only a couple of people claiming they saw something -- it wasn't a photograph, and it wasn't, well, the Internet."

Ron still looked unconcerned, but Harry had the sinking feeling that perhaps he had a... limited view, of what muggles might be capable of. 

Hermione seemed to be taking the issue a lot more seriously. 

It turned out she was quite right to do so. 

Soon it was more than one muggle. It was multiple muggles with high-powered camera lenses, taking photos from a distance. It was a satellite image of Durmstrang perched like a stone behemoth, huge and armoured, high up in the mountains: 'The disappearing fortress!' according to English translations. 'Appears on satellite, but our reporters cannot find it!' 

As soon as it became apparent that people were open to receiving more information on the magical, all the muggles the Obliviators had missed came crawling out of the woodwork. 

Claims came from all over. Sightings of hippogryffs, of chimeras, of ashwinders, merfolk and grindylows turned up across Europe. Owls carrying letters in the middle of the day. Uncommonly clever cats. One village in the Carpathians that had been savaged by dragon fire. A tiny Italian farming community that suffered from a strange, pervasive depression; four of its muggles had fallen silent and passionless and couldn't be roused. 

Eventually, the British Government, quite contrary to its agreement with the Ministry, was forced to make some kind of statement or face the possibility of civil unrest. 

Harry was back at the Dursleys' house when the announcement came. He came in, hands dirty and face flushed from his work in the garden, and saw Aunt Petunia leaning against the back of the couch, pale-faced and unusually grim. 

She glanced at Harry, but didn't tell him to leave or give him more tasks. He hesitated, feeling the innate wrongness of her expression. 

"It is owed to you, as citizens of the United Kingdom--" he glanced at the screen, suddenly very, very anxious. His heart beat filled his ears for a moment, and he only got to pay attention to the end of the announcement, but what he heard was damning enough. "Magic exists," said the middle-aged white man on the screen. "Magic exists, and it has been among us for centuries. It is time for those communities to come forward and--" 

Petunia turned the television off and set the remote down with a very loud click in the silence. She looked sideways at Harry again. "Your lot," she said haltingly. "They won't like this." 

Harry stared at the television. "No," he agreed. "I don't think they will."

They looked at each other and for the first time Harry could remember, there was a moment of perfect clarity and agreement between them. 

"I don't expect there's a great deal they can do about it now," she said. 

Harry thought about the logistics of trying to remove the memory of magical society from everybody who'd seen the broadcast. "No," he agreed. 

Petunia said nothing for a long moment. "Go was up. You can make the salad for dinner." 

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," said Harry automatically, and turned toward the bathroom. He wasn't sure what to feel, much less what to think. 

The announcement was sedate. The rest of the afternoon was tense but quiet. Dinner was tense and rather less quiet, with Vernon holding forth on the consequences of deceit and duplicity and how the whole magical community would well deserve whatever came next. 

Petunia, unsurprisingly, seemed a great deal more nervous about the whole business. She did nothing to slow her husband's diatribe, but she was very quiet. 

Harry went to bed that night feeling very apprehensive indeed. 

By the following morning, the world as Harry knew it was in chaos. 

**Author's Note:**

> Do kindly let me know if there's anything here you especially liked. :)


End file.
